


lips sealed (eyes open)

by Tokyo_the_Glaive



Category: Daredevil (TV), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Different First Meeting, Angst, First Kiss, Fluff, M/M, Mild Gore, Stalking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-09
Updated: 2015-09-09
Packaged: 2018-04-19 21:05:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,266
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4760993
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tokyo_the_Glaive/pseuds/Tokyo_the_Glaive
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Foggy met the Devil on a Tuesday.  He's since taken a vow of silence with the hope that the Devil will leave him alone and his life can go back to normal.  He's tenacious enough to follow through with it, too.</p><p>(Too bad the Devil's even more dedicated to making sure Foggy stays safe and close.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	lips sealed (eyes open)

**Author's Note:**

> My first Daredevil work! I'm throwing this out here un-beta'd, so any mistakes are well and truly my own. I hope you enjoy!

The Devil wipes his bloodied, gloved hands on his pants.

“Evening, counselor,” he says through that smile, through those teeth.

From where he sits, tied tightly to a chair that has embossed his skin to match its grain and planted splinters in his palms, Foggy sees the Devil in near-double.  He’s cold and cotton-headed with hunger and terror and dehydration.  If he could run, he would.  He tries to breathe normally, but he hears the _squelch_ of the Devil’s shoes as he walks through a mushy pool Foggy doesn’t want to look at and it doesn’t work.

The Devil walks—no _struts_ , nothing that suggestive could be termed walking—toward him.  Each step ratchets Foggy’s pulse a little higher and sends more beads of sweat down his face.  He would have thought that repeated encounters with the Devil would have made him immune to the effects, this persistent fear.  So far, though, Foggy’s just as terrified as he was back at the beginning, if not more so.

“Foggy,” the Devil says, and hell if it doesn’t have Foggy involuntarily licking his lips in spite of it all.  The Devil notices, because he always notices, and smiles a little wider.  “ _Foggy_ , what have you done this time?”

Foggy remains resolutely silent.  He didn’t speak to the Devil the last time, or the time before that.  He resolved not to after their first two encounters.

“Still not talking to me?” the Devil asks.  He sounds sad, Foggy thinks, as he crouches down to Foggy’s level.  Were it not for that mask, they’d be looking eye-to-eye.  As it is, Foggy has the disconcerting feeling that he’s staring into the abyss.  It might be funny, but he knows that the abyss is staring right back at him, and it’s ravenously hungry.

The Devil sets his hands on Foggy’s chest.  One’s almost perfectly positioned over his heart.  Foggy can hear the _ba-thump_ of it beating in his skin, from his hands to his feet and everywhere in between.  Now the Devil can feel it, too.

“No need to be afraid,” the Devil says.  His smile has faded into a sardonic parody of itself.  “At least, not of me.”

He says that every time.  Were Foggy in court, or faced with anyone else, he would voice an objection and ardently disagree.  Anyone who’s seen the Devil in action for more than a few seconds ought to be afraid of him.  Foggy has seen enough to be afraid for the rest of his lifetime with some to spare.

The Devil sighs as he traces Foggy’s shoulders, then trails down his arms to where his hands are tied.  His captors had been brutal if not efficient with the rope, and Foggy can feel the breaks in his skin when he tries to move.

“Let’s get you out of here,” the Devil murmurs.  It’s too gentle and too sweet, and it’s all Foggy can do not to speak.

* * *

Foggy met the Devil for the first time on a Tuesday.  It was hot and Foggy had sweat through both his shirt and his jacket.  Both articles clung to him like second skins.  He’d performed so poorly in court earlier in the day that were it not for the degree hanging in his office, Foggy might have believed that he’d never been to law school at all.  After that circus act, all he wanted was a beer or three, maybe some pizza, and a good night’s sleep.

Fate did not smile upon his wishes.  Walking home in the muggy night, Foggy tried to move quickly, keeping his head down.  He didn’t look wealthy by any stretch of the imagination, but New York was feeling the recession.  People needed any dollar they could scrape off of the sidewalk or out of a mostly-broke attorney’s wallet.

A few cabs passed him going opposite directions, and there were a handful of pedestrians doing the same as Foggy, striding purposefully home.  Foggy felt his pulse in his throat and tried to convince himself that everyone else was as scared as he was.  They were all in the same shitty boat, and they were living with it, so why were Foggy’s hands shaking?

He hadn’t always been this nervous walking home.  Usually he sang off key and smiled at anyone who looked his way.  Foggy had always been a friendly guy.

Reports of a man—or men, depending on the source—dressed in black changed him.

The first reports all claimed that the vigilante that the papers dubbed “The Devil of Hell’s Kitchen” only went for lowlifes.  He busted up drug and human trafficking rings, that sort of thing.  After that, though, the media got quiet about him, or else suggested he was responsible for something much, much worse.  The bombings from a few weeks ago came to mind.  Foggy wasn’t a suggestible sort, but he believed it, and not just because he could still feel the ache and pull where he’d been stitched back together in the aftermath.  In his book, anyone dressed in a mask beating people beyond the point of self defense with crowbars or whatever else was handy couldn't possibly be a good person.

Hyperaware of his surroundings, Foggy took note of the two men walking toward him and swerved off of the sidewalk.  They continued moving forward, passing Foggy at an easy pace.  Foggy didn’t look up, but one of them said, “Good evening.”  Foggy muttered a similar greeting in response and moved back onto the sidewalk once they were out of his path.

His pulse was far too high and he tried to calm himself by focusing on breathing slowly in and out.  Two muscled, tattooed men had politely passed him and wished him good evening.  How bad could the world possibly be?

A few minutes later, hands grabbed at Foggy as he passed an alley.  _Pretty bad_ , Foggy thought to himself.  He yelled, but no one heard.  Where had all of the pedestrians gone?  He tried to pull away, but whoever had grabbed him was stronger than he was.  After a brief tug-of-war at the entrance to the alley, Foggy found himself dragged in and pressed against a wall.  There was a knife at his belly.

The gears in Foggy’s fear-laced mind failed to do anything more than grind to a halt.  The owner of the knife, a bald man more skeleton than human with deep set eyes and no shirt spoke to him, then slapped him across the face when Foggy failed to respond appropriately.  Foggy’s ears rang.

“You can have my wallet,” Foggy said over the ringing.  By some miracle, his voice was level.  “There isn’t much in there, but you can have all of it.  Put the knife down.”

“I’ll tell you when the knife goes down,” the skeleton man snarled.  He was shorter than Foggy, but his arms were tree trunks, corded all throughout with unyielding flesh.  Foggy was well and truly trapped.  The skeleton man understood this and pressed the knife a little tighter against Foggy’s stomach.

“You don’t want to do that,” Foggy said.  “Something like this, just a mugging, the charges aren’t so bad, you know?  But murder—”

“No one’s gonna _charge_ me,” the skeleton man sneered.  “Look at you, all your fancy talk.”  He hauled Foggy off of the wall and threw him to the ground.  Foggy’s hands flew out to catch himself and took the brunt of the impact.  The skeleton man crawled on top of him, and settled the knife at Foggy’s throat.  The skeleton man laughed from above him.

Foggy frowned.  The skeleton man had completely stilled, but the laughter kept coming.  The skeleton man growled.  Foggy shivered to realize that someone else had come onto the scene, and he was fairly certain he knew who it was.

There was a dull _thud_ , and the skeleton man yanked Foggy up, jostling the knife as he did so.  Foggy yelped as it slipped through skin, and a bolt of pain ran through him.

“Get the fuck out of my way or I gut him,” the skeleton man said, brandishing the knife.  He had Foggy’s arms in a lock he didn’t know how to break out of, and the thin, shallow slice across his throat clouded his mind too much to do anything more than sag against his captor.  Foggy couldn’t see anyone in the dark of the alley, not in either direction.

The laughter stopped.

“ _You shouldn’t have done that_ ,” growled a deep, gravelly voice from behind.

Foggy wanted to pass out.  He might have—he was light-headed enough—but instead he dropped to the ground as the skeleton man abruptly released him and shrieked in agony.  Foggy crawled toward the nearest wall and propped himself up.  Almost immediately, he wished he hadn’t.

The Devil of Hell’s Kitchen was beating the skeleton man with his fists.  Foggy didn’t know if there were brass knuckles hidden under those gloves, but he could hear a sickening set of _crunches_ and _snaps_ that told him it didn’t matter.

Or, it didn’t until the Devil went for the discarded knife.

“Stop,” Foggy said.  His plea fell on deaf ears.

“I like your knife,” the Devil said to the skeleton man.  “Let’s see what it can do.”

Foggy felt his whole body shaking, tears threatening to spill over down his cheeks.

All at once, the Devil stopped.  As the ringing in Foggy’s ears subsided for the first time since the encounter had begun, he could hear the faint wheezing of the skeleton man on the ground.  The Devil, as he stood, made no sound at all.  He was an inkblot in the darkness.

He was _smiling_.

“Hello,” the Devil said.  “I don’t think we’ve met.”  He moved slowly toward Foggy and crouched in front of him.  Foggy shrank back against the wall as the Devil reached forward, but trapped as he was between the vigilante and the wall, there was nowhere for him to go.

Foggy squeezed his eyes shut and waited.

A finger, feather-light in its touch, ran its way across Foggy’s throat, right under the slice the skeleton man had inadvertently made.

“I’m sorry,” the Devil said.  Foggy opened his eyes.  With that smile on his face, the cat-that-got-the-canary smile, he hardly looked sorry.  Foggy had enough of a sense of self-preservation not to say so out loud.

The skeleton man groaned loudly.  The Devil tilted his head slightly in his direction, and the smile turned cruel.  He made to stand.

Foggy knew what the Devil would do.  He grabbed at his hand to keep him tethered to one place, his heart near to bursting out his chest as he did so.

“Let go,” the Devil said.  He had the firm voice of one talking to a child.

“You’re going to kill him,” Foggy said.  The Devil shrugged, or Foggy thought he did.  He was difficult to see with that all-black costume.  “That— He tried to—”

“Kill you,” the Devil finished.  He unwrapped Foggy’s hand from his wrist.  “He would have.”

Foggy’s throat ached.  “You don’t know that.”

“Yes,” the Devil said, moving toward the skeleton man.  He set one foot on the skeleton man’s back and applied pressure.  The screams were enough to raise the dead.  “I do.”

“ _Stop_ ,” Foggy said, screwing his eyes shut again.  He brought his hands to his ears for all the good it did him.  He was crying freely then, and if he’d had the coordination, he might have pulled his knees up to his chest.

All at once, the screaming stopped.  Foggy didn’t open his eyes.  He didn’t want to see the body, didn’t want to see the Devil, didn’t _want_ —

The Devil made a hushing sound and pulled him away from the wall.  Foggy was too boneless to resist as arms stronger than the skeleton man’s wrapped around him.

“There,” the Devil said.  “He’s still alive, don’t cry.  I wanted him to know not to try this again.  He’s alive.”

 _Liar_ , Foggy thought.

Even so, Foggy made no effort to move away from the Devil, and by some truly peculiar twist of fate, the Devil seemed to like it that way.  It was absurd and surreal, the Devil comforting Foggy as a mother consoles a child, whispering platitudes that had no meaning.  Foggy thought he caught part of a psalm, but he’d buried his head against the vigilante’s shoulder and couldn’t hear much over his own sobbing.

“Why?” Foggy cried, unsure what he was asking.  “ _Why?”_   One of the Devil’s hands rubbed a pattern into Foggy’s back.  He let Foggy continue to ask his nonsensical question over and over until the worst of the shock had come and gone.

After Foggy recovered enough to walk, the Devil led him to the other end of the alley.

“What’s your name?” the Devil asked.  His voice was quiet and calm, and he continued to rub circles into Foggy’s skin.

Foggy swallowed and wished he hadn’t, as the movement pulled on the skin of his throat.

“Do I get to know yours?” Foggy asked.  “It’s polite to give your name before asking for someone else’s.”

The Devil stiffened beside him, and Foggy’s pulse skyrocketed.  _This is it_ , he thought.  _This is how I die._

“Foggy,” Foggy said quickly, verbally backpedaling.  “Well, Franklin Nelson, but my friends call me Foggy, and—” Foggy breathed.  The Devil took the opportunity to cover Foggy’s mouth with a hand.

“Hello, Foggy,” the Devil said.  “So glad we could have this time together.”  Foggy kept himself very, very still as he became aware of how close to the Devil he was.  They were pressed tightly together from their feet to their hips, then again at the shoulders.  The real kicker, Foggy realized, was that the Devil had one hand wrapped around his back and the other around his front, silencing him.  Not only was it more human contact than he’d had since his last booty call with Marci, the Devil could snap him in about twenty different ways without breaking a sweat.  The calm that Foggy had managed to slide into dissipated as quickly as it had come.

“Oh, no,” the Devil said.  The hand that had clamped across Foggy’s mouth came to cup the side of his face.  “I’m not going to hurt you.”

“You killed him,” Foggy said, his voice nearly as unsteady as he felt.  _You’re going to kill me, too_.

The Devil shook his head.  “He’s still alive.  I’ll call him an ambulance once I see you home.”

Foggy felt nervous laughter bubbling in his chest.  He didn’t know what to say.

“You,” he started.  He wanted to crane his neck to look back into the alley where a man more skeleton than human was little more than a twitching puddle on the ground, but his neck refused.  “You…”

“Foggy,” the Devil said firmly.  “He’s alive.  You’re going to walk home and bandage your throat.  I’m going to make sure you arrive safely.  Is that all right?”

 _No_ , Foggy wanted to say, but what came out was, “You’re pretty noticeable, you know.”

The Devil’s smile came back in full force as he stepped away from Foggy.  Without the other man to keep him upright, Foggy wilted and only caught himself at the last minute.

“I’ll be watching,” the Devil said.

Foggy would be damned if he said he didn’t believe him.

* * *

The second time Foggy saw the Devil was much, much worse.

If prompted, Foggy would have said that he didn’t think it could get worse.  He’d come _this_ close to the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen, closer than anyone in their right mind would ever want to be, and he’d come through on the other side.  Were in not for his deeply entrenched cynicism toward all things religious, Foggy thought he’d be praising the Lord Almighty and devoting his life to the faith as thanks that he was still breathing.

As it was, Foggy just walked a little faster and hugged himself a little tighter and rarely smiled at anyone, even during daylight hours.  He changed his route to avoid that one alley because that single memory, burned into the very corners of his mind, refused to leave him alone.

Unfortunately for Foggy, there were much more tangible threats with which to be concerned.  He was too busy wallowing over the fate of the skeleton man to recognize them when they came.

Once again, he was grabbed going home.  “Grabbed” was an operative word in Foggy’s mind; his attackers—and there were plural attackers—jabbed a needle in his neck and held his arms and legs and mouth for the interminable minutes it took him to go under.

When he came to, he came to _hard_.  His head throbbed in the manner of a bad hangover and his mouth tasted like sandpaper and cat litter.  A quick mental inventory of his body revealed nothing more than a cramp in his side and a pain in his neck where they’d injected him, whoever they were.  At first, he thought they’d managed to blind him.  HIs eyes didn’t hurt, but he blinked and rubbed and was met by nothing but darkness.

Nothing, until they came to give him a sad excuse for a sandwich and a glass of water.  A door Foggy hadn’t known was there—he might have found it had he searched the walls, but he was afraid to move in the dark without knowing if it was the product of his surroundings or something worse with his eyes—opened, and the light that poured in nearly blinded him.

“So you’re awake,” the man said.  “It’s about time.  Thought you’d never wake up.”

Foggy was too groggy and too scared to say anything at all.  The man huffed a laugh and set the tray down.

“You know the Devil?” the man asked.

“Lucifer?” Foggy croaked, obstinate even through fear.

The man shook his head.  “Man in the mask,” he said.  He spoke conversationally, as if he and Foggy were friends.

“No,” Foggy said.

The man frowned.  “I don’t like liars,” he said.  “Got a fella claims he knifed you.  Says the Devil saved you, got a little extra friendly.  Devil almost killed him.”

Foggy’s face flushed.  He was grateful for the relative darkness of the room because _friendly_ wasn’t exactly the word he thought of when it came to the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen.

Then again, news that the skeleton man had lived evoked mixed feelings.  Good because he hadn’t been witness to the murder he thought he had, horrible because, in convincing the Devil to spare his life, Foggy had managed to make himself—what, exactly?

“You think the Devil and I are…” Foggy started.

“You’d better hope he comes,” the man said.  “My boys are hungry.  Can’t say what’ll happen if a little morsel like you turns out to be a nobody.”

The man shut the door and locked it, leaving Foggy in darkness.  He picked himself up off of the floor and felt around until he found the sandwich.  The glass of water he managed to knock over and he cursed in the dark as he set it upright once more.  When he went to drink, he found only a gulp of it remained.

Time passed slowly in the dark for Foggy.  He tried to turn inward and think about anything other than his current situation.  The skeleton man had tipped someone off—Foggy didn’t believe for one second that the man who’d locked him in was the head of the operation—and they in turn had kidnapped Foggy for the express purpose of luring the Devil out of his lair, wherever the hell that was.  The Devil wouldn’t come—why would he?  He probably didn’t even remember Foggy.

Foggy remembered the Devil, though.  He didn’t think he could ever forget.  He’d had dreams about the Devil in the days between his first and second attacks.  Most of them were violent reiterations of what Foggy had seen.  One of them, though, had been a very different kind of dream, one he wished he could sponge out of his mind.  Foggy blamed that dream on the proximity that he and the Devil had—briefly—shared and the—brief—but close look he’d gotten at the Devil’s lips, which were red, red, red.  He blamed it on the smell and the adrenaline and the fear and everything else.

When it came down to it, though, Foggy had had his first wet dream since high school about a masked vigilante who’d saved his life and nearly killed his attacker—a vigilante who’d left the attacker alive at Foggy’s request.

Based on the body count suggested by the media, Foggy slowly realized, sitting in the dark, such a thing (probably) didn’t happen very often.

Foggy shook his head, as if it would help, and resolved to get out of his own mind.  It wasn’t doing him any good to fantasize about being rescued by a lunatic whose hobbies involved beating people most of the way to death on a good night.

There was nothing to see, so Foggy strained his ears to try to determine where he was or who might have taken him.  He heard nothing until he moved closer to the wall at his left and pressed his ear close.

Foggy heard laughter, or something akin to it.  When it died out, he heard voices—a man’s, and then a woman’s?  There was laughter again.

 _TV_ , Foggy understood after a few minutes of listening.  His captors were watching TV and waiting for the Devil to arrive.  Either their preparations were ridiculously thorough or they had taken the skeleton man’s tip about the “relationship” between Foggy and the Devil with more than a few grains of salt.

Wonderful.  That meant that the man would be back sooner rather than later, as would his “boys”.  Foggy very much did not want to know what form their “hunger” took.

He sighed and shut his eyes, for all the good it did him.  He didn’t want his captors to return, but he didn’t want to be left alone in the dark.  Foggy considered himself a decent attorney; perhaps he could get a chance to put a word in the next time someone came for him.  He could be convincing when he tried.

The very thought of bargaining with these people, whoever they were, made Foggy wince.  He wasn’t sure what he’d have to offer to escape, but he was quite certain that they’d take it and then some and then leave him for dead before the day was done.  Hell’s Kitchen wasn’t known for producing honorable criminals.

Foggy had spun so many horrific endings for himself, each worse than the last, that he almost failed to notice the crash from the other side of the wall.  The television had stopped, or else had been turned down so low that Foggy could no longer hear it.  He pressed an ear to the wall again.  He thought he heard a few more crashes, these even more muted.  For the most part, he was met with silence and the persistent buzz in his ears that meant he was trying too hard.

For a while longer, there was nothing but silence punctuated by the occasional soft _bang_ , probably much louder outside of whatever Foggy was being held in than within.  Foggy crouched against a wall and waited.  He didn’t dare to hope, and he didn’t know how to pray.

Besides, who in their right mind prayed for the Devil?

When the door opened again, the lights outside had been knocked out.  The door squeaked, but for all that Foggy could see and hear, there could have been no one there.

Foggy knew better, though.  Of course there was someone there.

“Hello, Foggy,” came the voice in the dark.

Foggy stuttered, “Hello.”  He wisely didn’t ask how the Devil knew it was him in the absolute darkness that had enveloped them both.  The Devil, for his part, gave no hints.

Instead, the Devil had one hand on Foggy’s face before Foggy was fully prepared.  He whipped his head back and managed to knock it against the wall.

“Jesus,” Foggy cursed.

“Language,” the Devil said, tutting lightly.

“Don’t tell me you’re a believer,” Foggy muttered.  “That’d be the icing on the cake.”

The Devil had a hand around the back of Foggy’s head, feeling the area that Foggy had inadvertently hit.  “If I am?” the Devil asked.

Foggy sighed and wished he could see anything at all.  Even in the alley, he could see the Devil’s mouth.  Now Foggy just had a voice.

“Icing on the cake,” Foggy murmured.  “Mark me down as surprised.”

The Devil chuckled.  Foggy shivered to feel warm puffs of air against his skin.  The Devil was _close_.

“You’re not, though,” he said.  Foggy stilled.  “You’re not surprised.”  Foggy opened his mouth to speak, and the Devil said—nervously, Foggy thought: “Don’t ask.  It’s…complicated.”

“Complicated,” Foggy repeated.  He turned the word over in his mouth.  “Well.  When you put it that way.”

The Devil made a noise.  “You’re awfully glib for someone who’s been kidnapped.”

“I’ve been sitting in absolute darkness for an indefinite period of time,” Foggy said.  He had the sudden impression of being completely out of himself.  “I’ve been drugged and threatened.  They thought we were a,” Foggy’s mouth went dry, “thing.”

“They can’t threaten you now,” the Devil said through the black.  Those hands were back, one on either side of Foggy’s face.  It was too strange, too _intimate_ , yet Foggy was dealing with the Devil, a man he didn’t want to piss off now or any time in the future.  Foggy knew he should have been thanking him profusely and possibly begging for his life, and yet here they were.

“Are they dead?” Foggy asked.  He couldn’t keep the odd tone out of his voice.

“No,” the Devil said.  Foggy said nothing. After a long pause, the Devil said, “They know about you.  It’s going to be harder.  I could kill them—they’ll come after you again otherwise…”

Foggy decidedly did not want to think about the implications of any of that, but he couldn’t resist a question.  He couldn’t quite keep the awe out of his voice as he asked, “And you’d come?  If they did, hypothetically speaking, because no one’s killing anyone.”

The Devil made a noise.  “Of course,” he said.  Foggy felt himself being tugged to his feet.  “Of course.”

“Why?” Foggy asked.

“You’re…”  The Devil stopped himself short.  His hands moved from Foggy’s cheeks down to his shoulders and his arms.  Later, Foggy would recognize that as one of the Devil’s habits.  It’s how he would check Foggy, make sure he was all right.  In that moment, though, Foggy only shivered at the touch.  His wet dream came to mind unbidden.

The Devil chuckled, and Foggy hoped to whatever higher power could be out there that the Devil couldn’t read minds because otherwise the moment was going to get very awkward very quickly.

“Let’s get you home,” the Devil said.  “Follow me.”

One of the Devil’s hands disappeared while the other trailed down Foggy’s wrist and came to his hand.  Foggy grabbed hold of it without a second thought and allowed himself to be led through the dark.

It was the most hellish experience Foggy had had to date, and would continue to be through the rest of his life.  He stumbled through the dark, following the Devil.  Every few steps, his foot would nudge a body that didn’t moan or twitch or grunt.  The Devil claimed they were alive, and yet…

The Devil warned him when to step, but once, Foggy miscalculated and landed with a sickening _thump_ on one of them.  He nearly slipped from the slick— _blood_ , Foggy thought, _so much blood_ —covering the body, and were it not for the Devil’s hand, he’d have landed amongst the near-dead.

 _Dead_ , Foggy thought.  There was no way they could possibly be alive.

“I’ll call an ambulance,” the Devil promised.  Foggy had a feeling it was meant to make him feel better more than anything else.

They followed the same procedure as they had the time before.  The Devil watched Foggy as he went home.  Foggy felt the weight of his eyes, could have sworn that he _heard_ the vigilante as he moved through the shadows, stalking Foggy through the streets until he was safe in his apartment.

Foggy let himself in with the spare key he kept hidden under his neighbor’s doormat.  Once inside, he rested against the door and breathed deeply.  He had blood on his shoes that he didn’t think would come out, and based on feel alone it had seeped through to his socks and his skin.

His attention didn’t linger long on his feet.  Almost immediately, he was aware of a draft stemming from a window that certainly hadn’t been open before.

“Don’t worry.”

Foggy _screamed_.  The Devil clamped a hand over his mouth and held it until Foggy stopped.

Belatedly, the Devil said, “It’s me.”

Foggy yanked the Devil’s hand down and pulled away, embarrassingly aware that the moves only worked because the Devil allowed it.

“ _You_ ,” Foggy seethed.  He glanced over at the window and back to the Devil.  “You broke into my apartment?”

“Had to make sure you got in safely.”

“ _Bullshit_.”

The Devil grinned.  There was enough light from outside that Foggy could see it, could see the Devil in all of his—Foggy gulped—spandex-clad glory.  Foggy’s split-second of arousal must have been written across his face because the Devil began moving toward him.  There was that saunter again, that lazy strut.  Foggy backed up until he hit his couch.

“Like what you see?” the Devil asked.  His voice was a low purr as he stood over Foggy.  Foggy wanted to punch that smug smile off of his face, maybe with his own face.  He blushed hard at the thought and hoped the Devil couldn’t see.

“Well,” the Devil said, and hell if he didn’t bring one knee up to rest next to Foggy’s thigh, bracing himself with one hand on the back of the couch and the other right under Foggy’s chin, “I’m glad we agree.”

Even though Foggy saw it coming, recognized even that the Devil was moving slowly enough and holding him lightly enough that Foggy could easily bring everything to a screeching halt, he didn’t.  No.  Instead, Foggy made himself responsible for closing the gap between them a little bit faster.

The kiss was a short, hot mess.  Foggy knew from college and law school that he was a fantastic kisser.  That and his dedication to ensuring that his partner always came first and often several times after that had earned him a ubiquitous reputation as the gold standard of sex.  He wasn’t the type to keep a tally of his bedmates, but he’d been the first of many more than he could safely count and had had plenty of experience in all realms of romantic and sexual encounters besides.

Long story short, Foggy knew an inexperienced beginner when he found them.  In retrospect, he probably should have guessed that the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen didn’t get around a lot, but it hadn’t really been on his mind until recently.

The Devil pulled back first.  His cheeks, or what Foggy could see of them, were almost as red as his lips, which were slightly swollen.

“Don’t think this means I forgive you for breaking in,” Foggy murmured, and out of all of the things he could have said, _that_ was what came out?

“I didn’t,” the Devil said, and damn it all if he didn’t sound a little breathless.  “I can say that you live up to your reputation.”

Foggy preened, then—“ _What_.”  The Devil tensed but did not move.  “What did you say?” Foggy demanded.  The Devil moved toward the window.  “Hell no.”

“Foggy,” the Devil said, then, “ _Foggy_.”

“No,” Foggy said, “you are not allowed to turn on a sex voice and walk away from this.  _What did you say_?”

The Devil sighed and looked at the floor.  When he looked back up, he was smiling rather sadly, Foggy thought.

“Take care of yourself, Foggy.”

* * *

Within the hour, Foggy was on Marci’s doorstep.

“You look like hell froze over,” she said.  “What kind of shoes are those and what made you think they go with that outfit?”

“Wrong thing to say,” he snapped, “on both counts.”

“You don’t get to be a dick and expect me to let you in,” Marci said.  She put on that sickly-sweet voice of hers that said that she would brook no offense.

Foggy sighed.  “Please, can I come in?  I need to talk to you.”

“This isn’t going to be a booty call, is it,” Marci said flatly.  It wasn’t a question, but Foggy shook his head “no” anyway.  They hadn’t done that in a long time, and Foggy thought they were the better for it.  “Damn,” Marci said, even as she opened the door to let him in. “Make it quick.”

As soon as the door was closed, the words spilled out of Foggy's mouth: “Have you met the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen?”

It said a lot about Marci’s character that her response was a flippant, “Yes.  Drink?”  Foggy blinked at her.  “Don’t give me that look, Foggy-bear.”

“Don’t call me that,” Foggy interjected.

“It’s my house, I’ll call you what I please,” Marci said.  “You look so shocked.  He has been getting around rather a lot.  He’s not what you’d call a rare sighting.”

“You’d be surprised.”

Marci frowned.  “If you’ve got something to say,” she said, “speak up.  Clock’s ticking, what do you want?”

Foggy swallowed.  He hoped he didn’t look as debauched as he felt.  “Did he talk to you?”

“A little,” Marci said.  She stopped short.  “Don’t tell me…”  She sighed.  “Oh.  Well.  This is awkward.”

“Marci?”

“Take a drink,” Marci said.  “You’ll need one.”

A few minutes later, Foggy was sitting across from Marci with a glass of some bubbly, sweet wine in his hand.

“So I was leaving for the night—Landman and Zach, of course—and a couple of _specimens_ had waited up for me.  I think they regretted it when that thing of a man showed up, of course.”  Marci related this with even less passion than she reserved for clients who couldn't pay.  Foggy’s first instinct was confusion, but whether he remembered it most days or not, Marci was human; it took him a few long moments to recognize that this flippancy was her coping mechanism.

“I thanked him, of course,” Marci said abruptly.  “The Devil.  He knew me—or recognized me.  Whatever.  Asked me about you.”

This wasn’t what Foggy had expected to hear.  In honesty, he hadn’t expected Marci to have seen the Devil at all—he’d been hoping to complain about the Devil, crash on Marci’s couch, maybe get really smashed first, and wake up to find it all a sick dream.

“You’re joking,” Foggy said.

“I wish.  I offered to _thank him_ , but apparently my charms are limited to you and the Columbia debate team.”  Marci flicked a strand of hair out of her face.  “It wasn’t like I told him where you lived or anything.”

 _I did that myself_ , Foggy thought miserably.  “What did he want to know?”

“What you did, where you worked, that sort of thing,” Marci said.  “General things anyone could look up online.  To be honest, I was a little worried.  He only goes after the baddies, you know?  Thought you’d finally found your wild side.”  She made a face, and when Foggy didn’t react, she continued, “I might have rambled a bit, told him a little about our exploits.  Don’t worry, I made us both look good.”

“ _Marci._ ”

She raised both hands.  “I know, entirely inappropriate, but what did you expect?  I’d say sue me, but with the entirety of Landman and Zack behind me, I think we both know who would win.  Besides, it was months ago.”

Foggy rubbed his eyes.  “This isn’t happening to me,” he said, then, “Months ago?”

“Had to have been.  Did he…” she started, then took a deep breath and said, “Oh my God, he jumped you.  You two know each other?  What’s that like?  The sex, I mean.”

“You know what, it’s time for me to go.”

“Foggy—”

“Don’t ‘Foggy’ me, Marci.  First of all, telling strangers about our ‘exploits’?  Not okay.  Second of all, you didn’t think to tell me?  I’m going to need something way stronger than this,” he said, downing the drink in his hand, “to cope.”

He stood and went to the door.  It was almost shut when he heard Marci call out, “So how was it?”

Leave it to Marci to fixate on the one thing Foggy did _not_ want to think about.

* * *

Foggy promised himself not to talk to the Devil, not to so much as look him in the eye, ever again.  The Devil of Hell’s Kitchen had been _stalking him_.  Thanks to Marci, he knew about Foggy’s sex life, of all things, but the facts remained: a complete and utter stranger had picked Foggy Nelson, of all people, to follow.

Not just follow.  The Devil had nearly killed for Foggy.

(Foggy decided to leave out the part where they kissed afterwards because that was just this side of not-okay and he’d been the real instigator and that was a can of worms he would _not be opening_.)

The rational part of Foggy’s mind, often ignored nowadays, told Foggy that it was in the Devil’s best interest to do so—hurt those people.  It had nothing to do with Foggy.

The Devil had come and taken his due.  _A little more than that_ , Foggy thought, bitter and embarrassed and a slew of other emotions he wasn’t sure he wanted to examine, then or ever.  That being the case, though, Foggy knew that it wasn’t really about the Devil’s own self-preservation.  He’d said he’d do it all over again, again and again, for Foggy’s sake.  The thought was dizzying and intoxicating in ways Foggy was sure weren’t healthy.

For the time being, Foggy thought, the safest thing to do would be to keep mum.  If he saw the Devil, he’d walk the other way.  Either the lunatic would tire of him and leave, or— Foggy didn’t want to think of alternatives because they were all bad.  The Devil would tire of him.  Everyone he got involved with eventually did, so the Devil should be no exception.  Foggy’s life would go back to normal and all of the complications introduced by the Devil would disappear.

Right?

* * *

Wrong.

Foggy has known from the third encounter, one that blurs in his mind with the fourth, that the Devil is _always_ an exception.  He’d been hurt when Foggy wouldn’t speak.  Foggy saw that but he kept his mouth shut because should he honestly care?  He didn’t think he should.  (Should, as it turned out, was different than _did_.)

Now, as the Devil slides the ropes away from his wrists, as gently as he can manage, Foggy isn’t sure he can so much as _pretend_ not to care.  He’s honestly lost track of how many times they’ve done this dance—Foggy’s taken, the Devil comes for him, and the kidnappers _suffer_.

And oh, how they suffer.  Before, Foggy thought that hearing flesh and blood and bone snap and spill and rip would eventually desensitize him to the after-effects, the endless nights of not sleeping.  He can’t remember what naïve foolishness led him to that conclusion, but he’d thought that the repeated exposure would help.

It doesn’t.

The Devil seems a little sadder every time they meet when he talks to Foggy and gets no response, and Foggy finds his resolve chipping away at the same rate.  He's afraid what will happen when he finally opens his mouth.

The Devil’s got Foggy’s blood on his hands—from the ropes, Foggy realizes, he's bleeding a little more than he thought—and wipes that off, too.  Foggy feels like crying.  He’s cried before, in front of the Devil, on the floor of the bathroom of his own apartment, in his privacy of his own office.  He’s cried because he resents the fact that word’s gotten around that Foggy Nelson is the person to tie to a chair and beat senseless on slow nights.  He cries because no matter what he does, the Devil doesn’t seem to show any signs of leaving him alone.

He cries because he no longer knows or looks forward to what will happen when the Devil invariably _does_ leave.

He wants his life back.

The Devil offers a hand, the way he always does, and Foggy takes it, the way he always does, and away they walk.

Except, it’s not the same as always.  Standing outside now, Foggy’s waiting for the usual orders to go home, to _please, say something_ , but they don’t come.  Foggy frowns at the Devil, whose face is entirely unreadable.  He takes a moment to check out their surroundings—a shack down by the docks, as he suspected.  Foggy could smell the acrid water even when they had a moldy potato sack over his head.  When he looks back, the Devil is still standing there.

Foggy opens his mouth and shuts it with an audible _click_.

“Foggy?” the Devil asks eagerly, altogether too quickly.  Foggy purses his lips and bites them.   The Devil sounds  _desperate_.

The Devil sighs.  “I want to show you something,” he says.  “You can—”

Foggy is shaking his head “no” so quickly he thinks he might be sick.  He doesn’t stay to hear the rest.  Instead, he picks a direction he thinks is homeward and walks.

The Devil doesn’t approve of his plans.  He grabs Foggy and all but throws him against the nearest wall, one which happens to be the exterior of the dockside shack Foggy had been held in.  Foggy braces for an impact that doesn’t come.  Somehow, the Devil manages to worm an arm behind his head and brace the other against the wall so that he absorbs all of the crash himself.

The result, of course, is that the Devil has Foggy trapped against a wall.

If Foggy’s traitorous heart hadn’t decided that this was very hot, he might have been terrified.  As it is, he concedes to being scared _and_ horny.  The combination fails to unsettle him.  Repeated exposure has that effect, Foggy supposes.  If only it could always be easy.  (As if any of this could be defined as "easy".)

The Devil leans in to Foggy’s ear.  Foggy waits for the whispered threat or whatever is to come.  What meets him is not words, but—

“Are you smelling me?”

The words are out of Foggy’s mouth before he can call them back.  He feels his pulse drop, then skyrocket.

Rather than answer, the Devil takes in another lungful of air from the crook of Foggy’s neck.  He exhales loudly and quickly repeats the process.

“You can talk,” the Devil says in between breaths, speaking to the skin between Foggy’s jaw and collar.  Foggy swallows.  “I was worried they’d cut out your tongue.”  He says that without intonation, but he’s smiling a tad, and Foggy thinks that the Devil might be trying for humor.  If he is, he’s failing spectacularly.

Foggy bites his lips, but if he’s going to blurt out his thoughts involuntarily, he thinks he might as well go whole hog.

“I was hoping it would drive you away,” Foggy says.  “Pick up another hobby.”

“Your silence?” the Devil asks.  Foggy nods, and the Devil hums noncommittally against Foggy’s skin.  “You don’t believe that.”

Foggy coughs a laugh.  “How do you know that?" he asks.  The Devil doesn't respond.  "It’s things like that that make me want to pack up and move to California, you know.”

“Not the violence?”

Foggy pauses.  “I could do without the violence.”

The Devil rests his head against the patch of wall above Foggy’s left shoulder.  Foggy feels an odd vibration against his chest that he initially can’t place.

“Your breathing’s off,” Foggy says.  “You're hurt.”

The Devil exhales sharply against Foggy’s skin.  A full-body shiver overtakes Foggy’s spine.

“Nothing serious,” the Devil says.

Foggy closes his eyes and does his best to relax.  “You’re a pretty bad liar,” he says.

With a chuckle, the Devil says, “Can’t live up to the name in everything, I guess.”

“Do you have a real name?”

“Meet anyone named ‘Devil’ lately?”

Foggy laughs a little at that.  “No,” he says.  “But I kind of doubt you’re a regular guy, so anything’s possible.”

“You’d be surprised, then,” the Devil says.

“Again, I kind of doubt it.”  The Devil stares at Foggy.  “You beat the living daylights out of criminals every night.  That’s not what regular people do.”

“I just want to save my city.”

Foggy frowns at that.  He’s never thought about Hell’s Kitchen or even the entirety of New York City as “his” city.  He only knows a little bit about the political atmosphere and the economics of it all because he’s a lawyer.  Beyond his apartment, though, the city is a place where he happens to live.

“You don’t believe me?” the Devil asks.

“I do,” Foggy says quickly, realizing that he has let the statement hang for quite some time.  “It’s just.  Your city?”

“Hell’s Kitchen,” the Devil says slowly, as if Foggy’s missing a very obvious fact.

Foggy sighs.  “Right.  Just sounds like a line out of a bad cartoon.”

“It’s true,” the Devil says.  Foggy detects a note of defensiveness in his voice and raises his hands as best as he can.  They end up flush against the Devil’s chest, and he immediately puts them back down.

“Right,” Foggy says.  “Can’t argue with truth.”  The Devil breathes in and out against Foggy’s shoulder.  “Look, I know I’ve been giving you the silent treatment for the past few months and you’ve been beating up who knows who—”

“Criminals, Foggy,” the Devil interjects.  “Bad people.  They were hurting you.”

“—but your lungs sound terrible and I’m kind of worried you’re going to collapse on me in a few minutes and there’s no way I can carry you to the nearest hospital.”

“I’ll be fine,” the Devil says.

“You don’t sound fine,” Foggy says.  Even as he speaks, he wonders why he cares so much.  “Tell me you’ve got a phone stashed somewhere in that outfit of yours.  It’s tight enough that I feel like I’d have seen it by now, but…”

The Devil grins.  It’s a look Foggy’s only seen directed at him.  His sample size is small, but it feels special.

Of course, the Devil goes and ruins it with, “I’m not going to the hospital.”

“You should,” Foggy says.

“Maybe,” the Devil responds.  He picks himself up off of Foggy and stumbles backwards.  “But I’m not going.  They’d know who I was.”

 _The mask_ , Foggy realizes.  He almost forgot that the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen is an unknown vigilante.  He feels like he knows him without knowing his face, so that’s part of it.

“What were you going to show me?” Foggy asks, remembering what had been said earlier.  The Devil doesn’t respond.  “Hey, you still with me?”

“Doesn’t matter,” the Devil says.  “It’s not important.”

“Tell me and I won’t go find the nearest payphone and call an ambulance.”

The Devil hunches over to rest his hands on his knees and shakes his head.  “Your latest friends cut the phone lines,” he says.

Foggy wants to ask how the Devil knows that—Foggy can’t immediately see any evidence for it—but at the same time, he really, _really_ doesn’t.  While he’s working on plan B, the Devil stands back up.

“I’ll see you home, then,” he says.

“Oh no.  You think you can pull,” Foggy gestures violently at the space between them, “ _whatever_ just happened and then go back on script?”  The Devil tilts his head.  Foggy swears there’s a hint of a smile playing at the corner of his mouth.  “Don’t give me that look.  You know what I’m talking about.”

But the Devil is taking a few steps back, and in a blur worthy of every ninja movie ever made, he’s suddenly on the roof.

“All right,” Foggy manages.

“I’ll see you home,” the Devil promises.  “Take care of yourself, Foggy.”

Foggy sighs and peels himself off of the wall.  There’s no sense in arguing, so he brushes himself off as best as he can and begins walking.

* * *

“I told you to go _home_.”

“And I told you to call an ambulance,” Foggy says.  “We don’t always get what we want.”  He’s standing on the roof of the building opposite his own.  It’s not a high enough vantage to look out over the city, but he can see enough to consider it a view.  He had contemplated stopping at his apartment for a beer but figured the Devil would leave once he saw Foggy inside.

“Foggy,” the Devil says, exasperated, but Foggy doesn’t let him finish.

“Why’d you corner Marci?”

“Who?”

Foggy sighs.  “Marci.  I talked to her; you’ve met, so don’t act like you haven’t.”

“The woman from Landman and Zack,” the Devil says.  “Marci.”

“Don’t tell me you didn’t already know her name.”

The ensuing silence tells Foggy all he needs to know, and he curses himself.

“I’m not going to bother her, if that’s what you’re worried about,” the Devil says, coming to stand next to him.

Foggy makes a face.  “Not exactly,” he says.  “Marci’s good.”  He hesitates, then asks, “Why did you ask her about me?”

The Devil doesn’t try to deny the encounter.  He does, however, look sufficiently uncomfortable.  The nebulous fear that Marci blabbed a little more than she suggested about their “exploits” appears realized.

“You’re,” the Devil starts, then cannot finish.  “I’m sorry.”

“You’re not allowed to apologize when I don’t even know the full scope of what you have and haven’t done,” Foggy says, even though the logic’s all screwed up.  “So come on.  You’ve saved my ass enough times for a free pass on the creepy card.”

The Devil rubs the back of his head.  Were his knuckles not still bleeding from snapping bones not an hour earlier, Foggy might have said he looked nervous, almost shy.

“I’ve been following you,” the Devil says.  Foggy takes in a deep breath.  “Not in a creepy— That came out wrong.”  The Devil licks his lips.  “It’s— I can’t explain this without it being a mess.”

“It’s already a mess,” Foggy says to the view.  If he looks at the Devil he’s going to be distracted in the best and worst of ways.  “Out with it, then.”

“You’re not going to like me when I’m finished,” the Devil says.

Foggy really wishes he had a beer.  “It’s a little early to call the verdict,” Foggy says with confidence he doesn’t feel.  “Jury hasn’t even heard the case.”

“Fair point, counselor.”

There’s a silence in which Foggy assumes the Devil is collecting himself.  It stretches and stretches until: “I’m sorry.”

Foggy’s heard the words before, heard them even in that melancholy, mournful tone, but they’ve never been accompanied by a pungent-smelling cloth to his face.

* * *

Foggy wakes up disoriented, though it passes as soon as he notices it.  He’s in his apartment, on his couch.  His window is open.

“Shit,” he says, staring out.  The Devil bailed on him.  At least he had the decency to get Foggy inside.

Foggy goes to the window and looks out knowing that the Devil’s long gone.  He wonders what it is that he can’t be told, finds he’s torn between desperate curiosity and a fear with deep roots in self-preservation.

 _You’re not going to like me when I’m finished_ , that’s what the Devil had said.

Foggy had watched him mash flesh and bone to a bloody pulp on more occasions than he could count on one hand.  He knew that the Devil had been stalking him for reasons unknown for several months.

What could possibly be worse?

* * *

Foggy walks past Landman and Zack on the way to his office on the mornings when he’s feeling particularly bad about himself.  He had an internship there, once.  He’d made partner.  He would have stayed, too—but the offer had come when he and Marci were at their absolute worst, and they’d given her the same deal.  Foggy was out the door in a New York minute.  No one at his new practice would believe him bitter enough at his latest break-up to walk out on the best deal of his life, but they’re polite enough not to ask too many questions.

Privately, Foggy knows that his colleagues are of two minds.  Half of them think Foggy is a true moron who doesn’t know a good deal when he sees it; the other half believes Foggy was and remains out to save the world one _pro bono_ at a time.  Foggy confesses to being a little bit of both and leaves it at that.

Still, Foggy sometimes regrets his decision.  No, to tell the truth: he often regrets it.  He could be driving a fancy car and living the good life funded by enormous corporations and their subsidiaries; instead, he’s managed to draw the attention of a very attractive vigilante whilst being kidnapped every other week, and he’s only turning a modest income in between.  The one thing about his decision to leave: it was abrupt and entirely his own.  He came up with the idea and ran with it.  If nothing else, he was proud that he had the guts to go through with it.

Admittedly, there are pros and cons.  Foggy’s coming closer to reconciling the two.

The day after the Devil ditches him, Foggy walks past Landman and Zack, not because he feels bad about himself but because he’s confused, though for Foggy those two are usually linked.  He’s staring at the enormous glass building as he walks, and he almost misses it.

There are loads of blind people in Hell’s Kitchen, and Foggy doesn’t like to typecast, but most of them are Asian.  Since the influx of blind people—Foggy sometimes wonders where they all came from and why they picked one of the least friendly cities in the world to congregate in—he’s learned to keep his ears open for the persistent _tap tap tap_ of a cane.

Foggy hears it in front of Landman and Zack and immediately redirects his attention for the purposes of getting out of the way.

He takes a deep breath and can’t restrain the, “Seriously?”

The man with the cane doesn’t seem to hear him, but Foggy’s not an idiot.  The man passes him without saying a word.

“Hey,” Foggy calls.  “You’re blind, right?”

The blind man stops.  He turns as if trying to place Foggy’s voice.

“So they tell me,” he says, and _damn it all_ Foggy would know that voice in death.

“Want to talk about it?” Foggy asks.  If he’s wrong, everyone, including himself, is going to think he’s an absolute creeper, but the way the man frowns with those red red _red_ lips makes Foggy believe that he’s spot-on.  He does a quick once-over of the man before him: dark hair, round tinted glasses, stubble, a cheap suit.  He looks  _good._ Had Foggy not been looking for them, he might have missed the bruises mottling the man's knuckles.

“I think you have the wrong person,” the man says, moving his lips in front of perfectly white teeth.

“Mr. Murdock?”

The man cocks his head, and Foggy realizes that someone is speaking to the blind guy—and not just someone, but none other than Marci Stahl.  _Murdock._   Doesn’t he know that name?

“Mr. Murdock, we weren’t finished,” Marci says.

The man—Murdock _—_ smiles.  Foggy sees the Devil, but when he looks at Marci he sees no matching revelation.

“I think we are,” Murdock says.  Foggy notices a moment too late that he’s managed to hail a taxi in the scant few seconds he’s been standing there.  He climbs in and is gone.

“Oh, hello there, Foggy,” Marci says, taking notice of his presence.  Foggy turns back to her.

“Morning,” he says.  “You know that guy?”

“Matt Murdock?” Marci asks.  “Not particularly.  Do you?”

Foggy shrugs.  He probably knows far more than anyone does or even should.  “Is he one of your clients?”

Marci laughs.  It’s fake from beginning to end.  Foggy hasn’t heard Marci laugh genuinely while sober for a long time now.  He misses it.  “No,” she says.  “He’s an attorney, or so he claims.  Not a cent to his name as far as I can tell.”

“Harsh,” he says.  “Well, I best be off.”

“You’re not here to visit?” Marci says, pulling out a suggestive tone.  She knows about his walks past Landman and Zack.  They’ve never talked about his reasons for leaving, but Foggy knows that she’d advocate for his reinstatement in a heartbeat.  He also knows that they would probably burn the entire firm down if they both worked there at the same time.

“Not today,” Foggy says.  “I have a real job to do.”

Marci laughs, and it’s a little closer to genuine.  Foggy marks that as a success and goes on his way.

* * *

Foggy clocks out early that day.  It’s the first time he’s done so since joining the firm, and a few of the partners actually applaud.

“Proves you’re human,” the secretary says.

“We can’t be robots every day,” Foggy replies cheerfully, fingering the slip of paper he’s got nested between his fingers.  “See you tomorrow.”

Foggy hails a cab—he checked before leaving to make sure he had enough cash, because he _definitely_ doesn’t feel like getting mugged today—and gives the driver the address he’s got written on the paper.  The driver grumbles a little and speeds off.

Foggy runs his fingers over the carefully copied address he’d been given by Google and considers what he’s going to say.  _“I know you’re the masked vigilante who terrorizes the underbelly of Hell’s Kitchen every night”_ seems a little forward, but then again, Foggy did kiss him the second time they met.  The Devil— _Murdock_ , Foggy tells himself, _Matt Murdock_ —will probably forgive him for being blunt.

Then again, he makes a pretty big deal out of being an unknown.  Given that he chose drugging Foggy over telling him anything, Foggy rather doubts that the Devil really wants to be found out.

Tough toenails.  The cab’s just pulled up to the address, and Foggy’s going to do this if only because he doesn’t have enough cash on hand to back out now.

“We at the right place?” Foggy asks, eying the tiny door with suspicion.

“You calling me a liar?” the driver snaps.  Foggy sighs, pays the driver, and gets out.  The cab speeds off, and Foggy’s pretty sure he gets the finger in the process.

Rolling his eyes, Foggy looks at the door.  He takes a deep breath and goes.

The office isn’t on the first floor, or the second.  It’s wedged at the end of a third floor corridor across from a travel agency.  Foggy’s seen condemned tenements in better shape.

There’s a sign on the door: _Matthew Murdock, Attorney at Law_.  It’s lacking pizzazz, but Foggy appreciates that it’s straight and to the point.

Foggy knocks.  He can see movement on the other side of the door by way of translucent glass.  There are two figures, one of which moves out of Foggy's line of sight, the other of which comes to the door.  Foggy straightens himself out and takes a deep breath.

A very pretty, very _feminine_ woman answers the door.  She’s got sharp blue eyes and long blonde hair.  When she smiles, it’s watery and weak.

“Welcome, please come in,” she says.  “Do you have an appointment with Mr. Murdock?”

“No,” Foggy admits, “but I was hoping to speak to him.  I’m Franklin Nelson—Foggy, call me Foggy.  I work with the Bremen group across town.  Is Mr. Murdock in his office?”

The woman—the position of the desk suggests that she’s a secretary, but there’s no name plate—flutters nervously.

“I’m afraid he’s a little tied up with cases at the moment,” she says.  She stutters just a bit, and Foggy sincerely doubts that she’s telling the truth.  “Can I take a message?”

“Of course,” Foggy says, because he doesn’t want to make her life harder than it probably already is.  She looks ready to vibrate out of her skin.  “Miss…?”

“Page,” she says quickly, her skin flushing.  “Karen Page.  Pleasure to meet you.”

Foggy smiles as reassuringly as he can.  “Pleasure’s all mine,” he says.  “Would you tell him I stopped by?”

“Of course,” Karen says.  “Was there anything in particular you wanted to speak to him about?”

Foggy nods.  He looks at the (closed) door to what is undoubtedly Murdock’s private office as he says, “We agreed to talk about a prospective client, and I figured since I was in the area...”  Karen’s face is questioning, and Foggy can’t resist a little drama.  “The Devil of Hell’s Kitchen.”

Something changes in Karen’s face.  She looks excited—no, _happy_.  Foggy wonders if Karen knows.  She works for the man, she has to.

“Really?” she asks.  “I didn’t realize firms did that sort of thing—collaborate, I mean,” she amends, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear.

“They don’t,” Foggy admits, and Karen deflates a little, so he adds, “but there aren’t that many people who defend the Devil’s actions out there anymore.  “A unified front always works better, right?”

Karen smiles, and it’s much, much brighter than it was when Foggy first walked in.  “Yes,” she’s says.  “Yes it does.”

* * *

Foggy leaves his number—his cell, not that he tells Karen that—and his work address and heads back to the street.  So he didn’t get to talk to Murdock, but Karen seemed nice enough, so he doesn’t consider it a total wash.

Still, he’s got this itch under his skin that has him bursting at the proverbial seams.  If he were an athletic sort, he’d go for a run.  As it stands, Foggy has always preferred sitting activities to moving ones, so he heads back to the office.

In the time it took him to go to Murdock’s tiny firm and back, just about all of the other partners have packed it in for the night.  It’s not late, but it’s a Friday.

“You’re joking,” the secretary says when Foggy gets back.  He gives the biggest smile he can but still gets a head-shake in return.  “Robot.”

“Eh, it comes and goes,” Foggy says, retreating to his office.  He considers leaving the door open, but decides to close it.  He wants to be allowed some modicum of privacy, even in a mostly empty office.

Foggy picks up the nearest file.  It’s a mess of legal jargon it’s taken far too long for him to get used to parsing, but it’ll keep him awake and functioning until he relaxes a little.  He sinks into his comfy chair and gets to work in earnest.

* * *

Foggy’s only half-surprised when he hears the window behind his desk sliding open.  Or, rather, feels it: the air in the office is still until it isn’t, the relative heat of the night coming rushing in.

“Oh, no, whatever shall I do?” Foggy asks.  The falsetto is ruined by the yawn that takes over mid-way through.  He glances at the clock before he turns to the window.  Half past midnight.  Where did the time go?

“You should get some sleep,” the Devil says.

“Look who’s talking.”  Foggy slouches in his seat.  He was tired, but now he’s got that nervous energy from before all over again.  “I take this to mean that I was right.”

The Devil’s wearing his mask.  It looks a little silly under artificial light, but then again, it’s not exactly designed to be seen.

“You shouldn’t have done that.”

Foggy hesitates.  He’d expected many reactions; angry was, admittedly, one of them, but he’d somehow convinced himself throughout the course of the past few hours that he’d be met with something else.  Come to think of it, Foggy isn’t sure what he was expecting, but this should have been it.

“Maybe,” Foggy says, going for flippant and sounding vaguely terrified, “but then again, you did leave me hanging.”

“You couldn’t know.”

“You drugged me,” Foggy points out.  The Devil looks away—Foggy needs to ask about that because disguising himself as a blind guy is a total dick move—and seems like he’s about to speak but doesn’t.  Foggy takes the initiative to press on.  “So, what’s this, a you-better-get-out-of-my-city-because-I-don’t-trust-you-not-to-blow-my-secret-identity talk?  Because, if so, ouch.  You’re not a trusting one, are you?”

The Devil purses his lips.  Foggy’s a little jealous that he can look so good and murderous at the same time, not that Foggy’s going for the murderous look.  He’s just _appreciative_ , that's all.

“No,” the Devil says finally.  “I’m not.”  One gloved finger touches his mask.  “This protects me and the people I care about.”

Foggy snorts.  “If that’s all you’ve got, buddy, let me tell you, you need to up your game.  Get yourself some body armor or something.”  The Devil’s frown deepens.  “Look, I get it, secret identities are a big deal.”

“Do you?” the Devil presses.

Foggy sighs, and he can’t quite hold in the exasperation.  “Just because I can’t beat people to death with my bare hands doesn’t mean I automatically don’t know what I’m talking about.”

“I don’t kill people, Foggy.”

“Tell that to the media.”

“You know why I can’t do that,” the Devil says, and Foggy does, but he’s a little pissed.

“Sure,” Foggy says.  “Whatever you say.  But I can’t do whatever _this_ ,” he gestures between them, “is without something to go on.”

The Devil cocks his head as if he’s not sure what he’s hearing.

“What?” he asks finally.

Foggy runs his hands over his face.  “You know what, never mind.”

“Foggy.”

Foggy starts thrusting files into his bag.  “Nope.  You know what this is?”  Foggy rifles through his brain for a word—he’s sure there has to be a name for it someplace—and comes up short.  “This fixation of yours,” Foggy says rather inadequately.

“What about it?” the Devil asks.  His voice has gone quieter, and he’s dropped that growly, gravel-laden tone that he usually sports.  It slows Foggy down.

“It’s creepy,” Foggy says, and he winces because this is old ground that got them nowhere before.  “But you’ve saved me more times than I can count and I don’t think you’re a bad guy, and I’m willing to give you the benefit of the doubt if you’ll talk to me.”

“Are you asking me on a pity date?” the Devil asks.

Foggy blinks slowly.  “No,” he says.  He thinks it’s rather obvious, but maybe it isn’t.  “I’m asking you on a date-date.”

“A mask stands out in a restaurant, Foggy.”

Foggy nearly slams his hands against his desk.  Instead, he exhales sharply and runs a hand through his hair.  He needs a trim.

“I’m talking about as yourself,” Foggy says.  “Your daytime self.”

“How do you know that’s not the mask?” the Devil asks.

Foggy can’t handle philosophical questions right now, so he plays it off.  “For one thing, it would be your real face that would be out of place in the restaurant, not your mask.”

The Devil laughs briefly at that.

“Fair point,” he says.  Foggy stiffens.

“You know,” Foggy says, going for casual and failing spectacularly, “last time you said anything like that, I woke up from a drugged stupor on my couch.  By the way, my couch is not my most comfortable piece of furniture, for future reference.”

“Duly noted,” the Devil says.  “I’m not going to drug you.”

“I think what I said still stands.”

The Devil considers it.

“Do you trust me anyway?”

The question fails to come as a surprise to Foggy.  He knows the answer without thinking about it twice.

“Yes,” he says simply.

The Devil’s mouth twitches, and he sags a little on himself.  Foggy can’t tell if it’s disappointment or relief.  What had he been hoping—or fearing—Foggy’s answer would be?

In that same, quiet voice that Foggy now recognizes as belonging to Matthew Murdock, Attorney at Law, the Devil says, “I’d like to show you something.”

* * *

“Something” turns out to be Freedom Tower.  

More precisely, _the top_ of Freedom Tower.

Foggy’s not one for motion sickness, or even vertigo, but he’s pretty sure clinging to a man he’s now _sure_ is an absolute madman who in turn is clinging to the tallest building for quite a ways in any direction is not the best of ideas.

“Jesus,” Foggy says.  The media isn’t joking when they call the Devil “a man without fear”.

“Language.”

“Can you see?” Foggy asks.  “This isn’t a tell-me-everything-right-now. I’m just not sure if you know how awesome or terrifying this view is and in the event you actually are blind—which, I don't even know how that would _work_ , but—I feel you should know that it’s both in equal parts.  Awesome and terrifying”  He peers down the side of the building.  His stomach drops, but he must trust the Devil a lot more than he thought he did because he’s got this crazy idea that if he falls, the Devil will catch him.  It’s absolutely ridiculous because he’s very sure the Devil can’t fly, but Foggy feels indestructible, if a little queasy.  Skyscraper sway is a real thing and it’s playing hell on his sense of balance.

“No,” the Devil says, "I can't see with my eyes."  Based on the fact that Foggy’s literally wrapped around the Devil and feels no tension in his body at the statement, he concurs that it’s either such a well-practiced lie that it’s second nature or that it is, in fact, true.  “I’ve never seen this view the way that you can, but I come up here sometimes because it’s quieter.”

“Quieter?” Foggy asks.  It’s hard to think of it as quiet with the wind.

“I have…abilities,” the Devil admits.  “I’ll tell you about those when we go back down.  I wanted to make sure you saw this first, though.  It’s… I come up here to think.”

 _His safe space_ , Foggy thinks.  That’s no small act, bringing someone else here, and not just for the logistics.

“It’s incredible,” Foggy says aloud, and it is.  He doesn’t have words for the view.  “Why this first?”

He doesn’t need the Devil to answer that question to know what he’ll say.  _You’re not going to like me when I’m finished_.

The Devil swallows.  “Would you like to go back down?” he asks.

“Only if you’re ready,” Foggy says.  He’s not sure why he thinks it’s the thing to say.

“You’re afraid,” the Devil says.  “The height is bothering you.”

Foggy mentally smacks himself.  The Devil thinks he messed up.

“Stop.  Honestly, this is amazing.  You have to trust me when I say it.  I wouldn’t trade this for anything.”

“You mean that,” the Devil says.  He sounds pleased with himself.  Foggy can’t exactly see his face given their position on top of an enormous building, but he imagines he looks pleased, too.

“I do,” Foggy says.  His eyes drift over the city.  “I do.”

* * *

They go back to Foggy’s.  The Devil sets Foggy on the ground so that he can enter his apartment as if he actually owns it, which is nice.  For his part, the Devil goes in through the window.  Foggy supposes it makes sense.  If someone were to see them, Foggy could claim that the Devil was breaking in as opposed to invited, not that anyone would ever believe him.   _He_ hardly believes him.

Foggy keeps a pretty clean house, a byproduct of his on-again-off-again thing with Marci, something he's now grateful for.  (She always thought she smelled something rotten, and it was usually Foggy.)

“Can I get you anything?” Foggy asks.  He still hasn’t fully recovered from being up _at the top of Freedom Tower, what the hell_ but he’s getting there.  The room isn’t even spinning any more, which is a definitive plus.

“No, thank you,” the Devil says.  He’s a shadow by the window, invisible against the backdrop of the curtains.  Foggy doesn’t turn on the lights for fear that someone else might see in.

“All right,” Foggy says.  He sits on the couch and motions for the Devil to take whatever seat he’d like.  Gingerly, the Devil makes his way into the room, illuminated by the dull glow from the street below, and sits.

It’s absurd, Foggy thinks.  One of the most dangerous men on the East Coast is sitting in his living room looking like he's about to get the tongue-lashing of a lifetime.

Foggy forces his best smile.  “Well,” he says, “let’s get started.”

* * *

It doesn’t take long.  Childhood accident—Foggy remembers hearing something about that in the papers, actually—superhuman senses, world on fire.

Also, the Devil has been stalking Foggy since their apparently mutual time at Columbia.

He sneaks that in, or tries to, by speaking softly and very quickly.  Foggy doesn’t miss it, though.  He’s not an attorney for nothing.

“Seriously,” Foggy says.  There are many things he wants to say, but the Devil looks like he’s going to backflip out the window at the slightest sign of distress on Foggy’s part, and they’re not quite finished.

The Devil hangs his head.  He’s still wearing that mask, so it’s ludicrous to look at, but Foggy doesn’t laugh.

“Columbia,” Foggy says.  He’s doing his best to remember.  The thing is, Foggy spent about a quarter of his time at Columbia drunk beyond the point of recollection and the other three-quarters working his ass off.  Most of that three-quarters, he has happily repressed.

“I feel like I’d remember a ridiculously attractive blind guy,” Foggy muses.  The Devil bites his bottom lip, and it clicks.  “Were you hiding from me while you stalked me?”

The Devil scratches the back of his head, and once again, the mask makes the gesture look farcical.

“I didn’t think you’d take it well,” the Devil says.

Foggy nods.  “Uh, I just nodded.”

“I know.  I wouldn’t be very good at what I do if I couldn’t ‘see’ gestures.”

Foggy arches an eyebrow.  “Anyway, you’re not wrong.  I probably would have freaked, maybe transferred.”  The Devil’s chest stops moving.  “Before _you_ freak,” Foggy amends, “may I ask why?”

“Why?” the Devil asks.  It’s the question of the hour, at least in Foggy’s view.

“There are more than a thousand law students at Columbia,” Foggy says, “and way more than that in undergrad and the rest.”

“It’s,” the Devil starts.  “I don’t know.”

“Not gonna lie, that’s not an answer, buddy,” Foggy says.

“You wouldn’t want to know.”

Foggy resists the urge to bash his brains against the wall.

“I’ve been sitting here for hours listening to things you think I don’t want to know and I haven’t run screaming,” Foggy says.  _Yet_.  “Just spit it out.”

The Devil swallows.

* * *

The Devil was absolutely right, Foggy did _not_ want to know.  

Apparently the Devil was in that quarter of Foggy’s time at Columbia spent at the bottom of a bottle.  Foggy had gotten friendly with him _several times_ whilst completely smashed _._ Not only that, but—at least according to the Devil’s telling—Foggy had a Devil-radar thing going on because when he was drunk he invariably ran into him.  Didn’t matter if the party was across campus or what; Foggy would find the Devil.

Initially, the Devil had been quite put-out (“miffed” was the word he used; Foggy absolutely understood).  He wasn’t into affection at that point, or much in the way of human contact, so repeatedly bumping into Foggy (Foggy sensed the code for “having Foggy hit on him mercilessly”) wasn’t his cup of tea.  Each time it happened, the Devil got someone to escort Foggy back to his room or to a party or _anywhere_ that wasn’t near him and promptly locked himself in his room.  (And here Foggy had just thought that Columbia students were all-around decent people.  He’d noticed that people went out of their way to make sure he got to and from places when he was loaded if only because they often came to check on him in the morning.  He hadn’t expected that someone was telling them to do so.)

Many encounters with Foggy had piqued the Devil’s curiosity, though.  He asked around about Foggy, found out that he was an all-around great guy.  (To hear the Devil say it made Foggy’s face flush because Marci _definitely_ was not the first person to tell the Devil about his “reputation”.)

After that, the Devil had fallen into the habit of looking for Foggy, at first just to get a heads-up for when Foggy was going to get drunk, and later because, in following Foggy around, the Devil became rather enamored of him.

* * *

“Well,” Foggy says.  _Well_.

“I’m sorry,” the Devil says abruptly.  “I should have told you—”

“Stop apologizing, clearly I was the one overstepping boundaries,” Foggy says.  "At least at first."

“You were drunk,” the Devil says.  "It wasn't your fault."

“Doesn’t give me an excuse to hit on people who are obviously uncomfortable with it,” Foggy says, “as I imagine you were.  That’s textbook sexual harassment.  I have to admit, I don’t remember any of this.”

The Devil smiles a little.  “You were _very_ drunk.”

Foggy shrugs.  “Work hard, party harder.”

An awkward silence falls between them.

“So what now?” Foggy asks.

“That’s for you to decide,” the Devil says automatically.  Foggy frowns to himself and wonders of the Devil can sense it like he can “see” Foggy shaking his head.

“I’m frowning at you right now, you know that?”

“I didn’t, actually.”

“The more you know,” Foggy says.  There’s another pause, then he asks, “May I see your face?”

“My face?” the Devil asks.  His fingers brush the edge of the mask.  "Haven't you already seen it?"

“I may be getting ready to make a deal with the Devil, but the Devil’s a person I’ve only seen while intoxicated and daydreaming, respectively,” Foggy says.  "And the latter only once.  As I remember, you are a handsome Devil."

The Devil has the grace to smile at the terrible joke, though he doesn't otherwise move.  It’s not the first time the Devil’s hesitated, not by a long shot, but it’s the first time Foggy well and truly believes that he might say no.  That’s the truly miraculous thing about all of this, that the Devil hasn’t thrown up his hands and said Foggy’s more trouble than he’s worth.  At this point, Foggy couldn’t have blamed him if he did.

But the mask is up, over the Devil’s nose and over his eyes.  His hair—Foggy can’t put a color on it in the dark, but it’s dark like he remembers—sticks up at odd angles, and he’s got indentations from the mask on his face, but—

Foggy grins.

“Hi,” he says.  “We’ve never formally met.  I’m Foggy.”

The Devil bows his head, as if that could hid the killer grin that’s growing across his face.  “Matt Murdock,” he says.  “Pleased to meet you.”


End file.
